Who didn't deserve their Gold Glove in 2009?

An MLB offseason SAT-style analogy question:

Prince Fielder is to rotund as
Gold Glove award is to _________.

Bubble the answer in COMPLETELY. No stray marks.

a) deserved
b) arbitrarily bestowed
c) farcical
d) irrelevant
e) somewhat flawed

I think it's safe to say we can eliminate (a). Any of the other options are plausible and at least partially correct -- and I promise it's not just sour grapes since my Red Sox were completely shut out this year.

2009 Gold Glove Award Winners
Performance vs. League (AL/NL)

The above chart shows at a glance the performance of the 2009 winners versus their eligible counterparts. The results, which I'll get to in a second, are sobering.

Caveats (obviously): We don't know how to measure defensive ability with statistics, and in fact the only thing we do know is that errors and fielding percentages are misleading and give an incomplete picture. They only record bad plays, not good ones. They don't give us an impression of a fielder's range. True, true, and true. Fair points. I submit to you, however, that a league's Gold Glove winner should be above the 17th percentile at his position for errors made. Looking at you, Mr. R. "Bobbles" Zimmerman -- although your 18.1 Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR) impresses me enough that I shall spare you further ignominy and not include you in my bad-bet list below. (UZR, beloved by the statheads, is one of those metrics that just doesn't mean that much to me. I'll assume, rightly or wrongly, that having the best one at your position is worth at least something.)

Unlike, for example, the MVP awards -- voted by the Baseball Writers Association of America, which generally does a good job -- Gold Gloves are chosen by managers. Putting gut-instinct kinds of guys (all managers are) in charge here is a recipe for disaster once you look back at the numbers. Without further delay...

The Three Worst Calls of the 2009 Gold Glove Class

3. Orlando Hudson, NL 2B (8 errors, .998 fielding percentage, -3.3 UZR)
There really doesn't seem to be much of a defense for this one. As my chart above shows, Hudson's 8 errors this season makes him pretty much the median eligible NL second baseman. He did log a good number of innings (and thus fielding chances), so his fielding percentage makes him look a little bit better comparatively speaking. Even that would put him only 5th among the 15 NL second basemen with at least 500 innings. His UZR -- not only below average, but below zero (which I think means your team would have been better off putting a Tempurpedic mattress at your position) -- isn't going to bail him out.

Who should have won: Freddy Sanchez (5 errors, .990 fielding percentage, 7.4 UZR).

2. Adam Jones, AL OF (5 errors, .986 fielding percentage, 9 outfield assists, -4.7 UZR)
This guy had a breakout season offensively and provided a much-needed spark to a mostly uninspiring Orioles lineup. But that has nothing to do with the Gold Glove. The best-looking stat here is Jones' 9 outfield assists, which I've generously included in my analysis here. But come on: 10 AL outfielders had even more, including Jones' teammate, Nick Markakis. If not his arm, what's winning him this award? UZR in theory measures his speed in getting to balls, but his -4.7 mark is awful compared to the competition, so apparently he's not as fast as managers think. It's also entirely possible to complete a full season as a major league outfielder and make fewer than five errors -- there's only so much that can go wrong, really (cue mental reel of Matt Holliday's showstopping performance in left field in the NLDS).

Who should have won: David DeJesus (0 errors in 310 chances, 1.000 fielding percentage, 13 outfield assists, 15.1 UZR)

1. Mark Teixeira, AL 1B (4 errors, .997 fielding percentage, -3.7 UZR)
First-basemen have an easy job: catch the ball. Bonus points for fielding grounders when they're hit your way. Throw underhand to the pitcher covering the bag. Mark Teixeira does a perfectly good job of this. But why all of a sudden is he better than Youk?! Or a league-average first-basemen, for that matter. If I can throw UZR in here to serve my purposes, I'll point out that the Maryland Mauler had the third-worst of the 14 AL players considered in this analysis (only verifiable clunkers Billy Butler and Carlos Pena were worse).

Who should have won: The sweaty Boston guy with the beard. (He plays the game hard, what?)